


Greetings From Cardassia

by LadyYateXel



Series: The Awkward Adventures of Julian Bashir : Cardassia Edition [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Illustrated, M/M, Post-Series, all awkward all the time, i am a terrible tagger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-25 02:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyYateXel/pseuds/LadyYateXel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles gets a pre-recorded message from Julian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The series gets called 'Cardassia Edition' as though there is another one, but really, any adventure Julian Bashir has is bound to be an awkward one. 
> 
> The plan is for this to be a series, and I've marked it that way to make myself do this again.

“You have a new message.”

 

Miles looks up from the jumble of circuits that had once been an old replicator. “Computer, who is it from?”

 

“The data is corrupted. The microdata is Cardassian in origin.”

 

“Huh. Probably a maintenance request. The whole damn planet is a maintenance request.” Miles sighs, grabs his coffee, and slides his chair over to the console so he can see the screen. “Alright, computer, play message.”

 

The image is a corrupted rainbow smear at first, and the sound is a particularly grating version of subspace interference. Suddenly the screen settles into an image of Julian holding his hands out at the camera as though he's afraid it's going to fall if he makes any sudden movements. He looks a little rough, like he rolled out of bed and then decided to take a jog at high noon in mid-summer.

 

 

 

“Okay, I think I've got it...,” Julian says, presumably to himself. He slowly eases himself away from the screen and lets his arms fall into his lap, looking pleased with himself. He appears to be sitting on the floor somewhere and as far as Miles can tell, is wearing pajamas. Miles shakes his head and braces himself, grateful already that he settled in for this with his coffee. 

 

“Hello Miles, and Greetings from Cardassia!” Julian chirps, waving dorkily at the camera. Miles raises an eyebrow and Julian apologetically continues like he knew that would be coming. “I know, I know, I didn't really tell anyone I was coming here, but I wanted to check on the situation for myself when I heard that they still needed more doctors after all this time. Looks like it would definitely be worth staying for a while.” Julian pauses and fiddles with something on his screen. 

 

“Okay, that's better,” he says, letting his hands fall back into his lap.  Julian's gaze falls to somewhere to the left of the screen and he makes a poor attempt at sounding casual when he says, “I also ran into Garak.” 

 

“How the hell do you just 'run into' someone like that?” Miles says aloud. “ _Oh, I was just in the neighborhood of your whole damn planet, thought I'd drop by!_ ” Maybe mocking Julian while he can't fight back and isn't even physically present is not sporting, but, Miles reasons, it's not like Julian will ever find out. 

 

Julian appears to be making some dedicated effort not to look at the screen while he talks. “Garak and I had a letter exchange going for a while – you might remember when I got that rather lengthy one – so it's been fun to see all the things he wrote about in person. He's been telling me about everything he's doing to keep busy and introduced me to his other doctor friend, so that's been nice.” He laughs, but it seems a little forced. “I'm, er, at his place at the moment, actually.” He adds quickly, “So I can send you this! I hope you actually watch this, even though it will probably look like it came from him.” 

 

Miles shakes his head and takes a sip of his coffee. He is about to mock a pre-recorded message again when Julian does it for him. 

 

“Which doesn't even make sense to say, because if you're looking at this, you already know it's me and thus hoping that you'll look at a message you've already decided to watch is– Right.” He shakes his head, runs his hand through his hair once, and then straightens his shoulders as though he's finally ready to deliver the actual content of the message. 

 

“Anyway, look, I've been here a little while, and I thought I should tell someone about this. And then I thought it should be you, all things considered. Because, really, if I'm honest, what are the longest lasting relationships of any kind that I still have? You and Garak.” 

 

Miles winces at being put in the same category as Garak for any reason, even if the reason is his best friend. 

 

“Sooo, this makes sense,” Julian says, as though trying to convince himself rather than Miles. “It should definitely be you.” There's a long pause while Julian looks off at something off screen. 

 

 

Miles is about to turn the message off in frustration and just try to contact Julian directly about how to send proper correspondence when Julian looks into the camera for the first time since the start of his message. “I didn't think this was going to be a problem, since I was pre-recording it, but damn if this wouldn't feel totally natural and much easier if Garak were a woman or- god, what the hell am I saying? “ He frowns, leans back away from the screen and sighs at the ceiling. “Computer, erase message.” 

 

Miles stares at the screen, baffled, coffee cup drawn up to his mouth. 

 

“Unable to comply,” Julian's - no, Garak's - computer replies.

 

Julian's eyes go wide and he looks around the screen. “What, why not?” 

 

“Unable to comply.”

 

Julian turns off to his left and a little behind him. “Garak, does your computer understand commands given via translator?”

 

Miles is still unable to move his mug while he hears Garak's voice in the background. “It should. You were able to tell it start recording, weren't you?”

 

“Well then it's broken.”

 

“That wouldn't surprise me. Everything is broken.”

 

“I just need it to erase this message.” Julian looks back at the screen in dismay. “I don't understand why it would record if it won't erase.” He looks back off screen toward Garak. “You try it.”

 

Garak says something that Miles can't quite hear and watches Julian frown when the computer repeats, “Unable to comply.”

 

“Still nothing,” Julian sighs. “I just didn't want it to send this message to Miles unti-”

 

“Sending message.”

 

 

Julian flails wildly at the screen. “No, no! Computer, cancel!”

 

“Unable to comply.”

 

The message cuts out, but not before Miles hears what he's sure is Garak laughing in the background.


	2. 'The One Time'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this bit just as a note to self about what happened after Julian's message-fail, and then another awkward adventure fell right into it. I hadn't actually intended to write this, and certainly didn't plan to post it when it was started, so adding it as a chapter is the best I can think of for now. 
> 
> This part isn't illustrated, but that may change. 
> 
> The regular Awkward Adventures shouldn't be so tightly tied to other ones, and I plan to post them all as separate stories in the same chonological time line. The idea would be to be able to enjoy each one alone as well as part of a over-arching thing, but we'll see what happens. 
> 
> In the meantime, enjoy this as Awkward Sub-Adventure 1.5.

Garak resumes reading on the sofa when he's done laughing at Julian's misfortune with the computer. He's still poking at the padd in his hands when he says casually, “I am interested in why you told O'Brien that things would be easier if I were a woman.”

 

Julian winces. As though it wasn't bad enough that Miles would be seeing that disaster of a message, now Garak wanted him to expand upon it. “First of all, I didn't mean to tell him that, and now he probably thinks I'm completely mad. And second of all, you told me you weren't even going to listen.”

 

Garak shakes his head in a gesture of mock-pity. “Yes, but you should remember-”

 

“To only trust you seventy-four percent of the time? Yes. It's working out when I've entered the twenty-six percent zone that I haven't quite figured out yet.”

 

“That's not what I - Seventy- _four_?”

 

Julian does his best to convey as much smug as possible in his smile. “I could go into exact figures, if you'd like.”

 

Garak tilts his head back in what looks to be disgust. “I'm far more interested in why I'd need to be a woman for you to talk to Mr. O'Brien.”

 

Julian picks himself up off of the floor and goes to pace around in front of the sofa where Garak is sitting. “It's just always been so easy to tell him about all the women I encountered, or was involved with, or was even interested in, because I knew he liked them too.”

 

Garak does not look convinced. “I recall there being a _Mrs._ O'Brien.”

 

Julian throws his arms up. “Well, exactly! He likes women! I do too! Being married doesn't mean you stop being able to appreciate something nice when you see it. What I meant was: I don't know that he's ever been interested in a man, so I feel a little strange suddenly mentioning this when I'm not sure he's going to understand, or relate, or even want to think about it. And... I don't know, _I've_ never been interested in a man before, so I can imagine – well, okay, there was the one time, but-.”

 

“' _The one time_?'” Garak echoes, eye ridges raised.

 

Julian laughs. “In my defense, he'd been a woman just the week prior. You've heard of the Bassom?”

 

Garak makes a 'hm' noise that tells Julian he is going to have to tell the story regardless.

 

Julain sighs, and launches into an abbreviated and slightly edited version of events. “Right, so one week at the Academy we're in our first day of an advanced biology class and I see this girl across the room who's got this skin that kind of glows – and I mean really glows! It's some kind of bioluminescence – and she's definitely gorgeous _and_ apparently interested in advanced biology, which made her even more exciting. I point her out to my friend Tanik, who was sitting beside me, and he won't stop elbowing me until I promise to go ask her out. So after class, I went up to her, and I... botched the whole 'asking out' thing a little and didn't even really get to finish introducing myself before she excused herself and walked away with some friends.”

 

“No doubt trying to spare you the humiliation of getting to the point.”

 

“Yes, hilarious, aren't you clever . And now _you're_ stuck with me.”

 

“I'll cope.”

 

Julian shakes his head, though he can't help but smile. “Anyway, I try for a week to get her attention, but I can't ever get her away from her friends. We had a three day break in classes, and at the start of the next week, I finally see her sitting alone, and something looks a little different, but at the time I wasn't particularly interested in the subtle details of her glowing.”

 

“Which change with the hormones.”

 

Julian folds his arms over his chest. “You _do_ know about them.”

 

“Never said I didn't.”

 

“Well, since you're apparently keen to listen to me making an ass out of myself today, I'll tell you the rest of this. Though I suppose you already know how it ends.”

 

Garak smirks, clearly enjoying the story. “I can imagine the general outcome. It's the specifics I'm going to find interesting.”

 

He shouldn't be so resigned to Garak enjoying his social misfortune, he thinks, but he can't bring himself to get angry about it. So,  Julian sighs, lets his arms drop, and continues. “I went up to her during our ten minute break, and said something fantastically dumb about being unable to keep from noticing her smile beaming across the room even more than the glow or-”

 

Garak winces and draws in a sharp breath.

 

“Exactly,” Julian says. “And she looked at me, and the deepest voice I'd ever heard came out of her mouth and she said, ' _Maybe you ought to pay more attention in this class, Human._ ' I was _stunned_ and just stared at her slack-jawed like some kind of idiot. And then, in an attempt to redeem myself, I panicked, and said, _'I'm sorry, I thought you were a girl! I would never have done this otherwise!'”_

 

Julian thinks Garak may be holding in laughter. He considers that it's quite possible he enjoys Garak laughing more than he values ever being perceived as a social genius in addition to a medical one.

 

_“_ And then I noticed that the entire room had gone quiet. They gave me looks like they would have happily murdered me if it wouldn't have kept them from being in Starfleet. Tanik came by at that point to save me from decending to even lower levels of social failure by loudly asking me if I'd accidentally taken the pills we'd been working with in one of our other classes.”

 

Garak smiles. “A fine friend.”

 

Julian tries to be irritated, but he's smiling too. “Who made weeks upon weeks of taunting jokes about painkillers possible.”

 

“Better than murder, I should think.”

 

“Arguably. Anyway, he dragged me away, and said _'Julian, what the hell were you doing? He was a woman_ _ **last**_ _week.'”_ ' Julian's eyes widen with remembered indignation and he flails his arms a little. “ _ **Last**_ _week'_ he said! Like it was old news and I should have known better than to not check first. I had no idea that Bassom change sex so easily they can do it practically at will. Which you know, of course.”

 

Garak raises his eyeridges and smirks.

 

“Of course you do.” Julian finds himself nearly mirroring Garak's expression. “It was certainly nice of Tanik to mention that when I went after the girl in the first place.” He shrugs and lets himself fall limply on the sofa next to Garak. “The change, I found out, is an extremely sensitive sort of evolutionary response to whatever mating opportunities present themselves. It was left over from a time when they were a struggling population and their planet was toxifying. I suppose she - or, he, I guess - had met someone over the weekend who really liked men. He was still awfully pretty, though.”

 

“But you didn't say anything more to him after that.”

 

It wasn't a question, and Julian bites his lip before answering, “No. If he was ever a woman again, I didn't see it.”

 

“And that would have been necessary for you.”

 

“At the time,” Julian replied somewhat sheepishly. “ Possibly still. Though it's not as if he would have talked to me again, even if I had been interested.”

 

“Justifiably.”

 

“Hell, even _I_ wouldn't have talked to me,” Julian says, laughing.

 

“Has Mr. O'Brien heard this story?”

 

Julian waves his hand dismissively. “Oh, probably. I may not have been sober when I told it, nor him when he heard it, but probably.”

 

Garak pokes idly at the padd still in his hands. “So perhaps I should let you drink before accessing my computer next time.”

 

“I'll _tell him_ ,” Julian says defensively. He's a little surprised that the conversation came back to his failure with the message to Miles so quickly. “Hell, he's probably already figured it out. I just feel like telling him will be like rambling about something weird and personal that he doesn't want to hear about and I'm not really sure how I should approach it if he hasn't guessed.”

 

Garak frowns a little. “' _Weird'_. I'm flattered.”

 

“I didn't mean-” Julian stops himself and tries to come up with a suitable example to demonstrate his feelings on the subject. When a proper comparison comes to him, he angles himself a little more toward Garak and tries to set the stage for a hypothetical situation. “Okay, imagine that we're back on the station eating lunch and one day all I talk about is wanting to be with something you really didn't have any attraction to – like a slime mold or something, and -”

 

Garak's spine straightened and his eyes widened. “A _slime mold?!”_

 

Julian winces the moment he realizes what he's said. "Not _you!_ Just-! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that!”

 

Garak holds a glare on him, but says nothing.

 

Julian shrinks in his seat a little. The idea that he could have just told Miles about something going on with Garak only to ruin said thing ten minutes later made him a little sick. “I didn't mean it, I'm sorry. I didn't think that through.”

 

“You don't say?”

 

Relieved that Garak is willing to speak to him, even if it's sarcasm, Julian tries to clarify.“Honestly, in the long run, it'll be fine; it's not like Miles is primitive enough to have any kind of problem with this. I shouldn't have even said anything. He will complain about everything that isn't really the issue – your age, your sex, your _species_ – just because he can and because it's the opposite of everything I've ever showed interest in, but what's really going to matter to him is just that it's _you.”_

 

“Please tell me when you get to the part that _isn't_ supposed to offend me.” Garak's expression is almost unreadable, but Julian thinks he can see hurt in there somewhere.

 

“None of it is supposed to! I'm sorry, really. It was a stupid thing to say on the heels of a story in which I said stupid things. I was just trying to explain and I … did it poorly. It feels strange telling him, and he might be a little difficult about it.  I wanted you to understand until he got used to it and it all calmed down or blew over. That's it.”

 

Garak eyes him suspiciously, though thankfully with a little less venom than a moment ago. “Why bother seeking his approval?”

 

“He's my best friend; he should know. It would _nice_ if my best friend approved. Unless you would rather I keep this all hidden?” Julian indicates 'this' by motioning between them.

 

“I'd say you're doing fairly well hiding on another planet.” The answer is frustratingly not much of an answer and more an accusation.

 

Julian leans across the sofa, and thankfully, Garak doesn't recline away from him. “I'm not _hiding_ here, I'm _with you_ here! The reason Miles even saw that awful message was because I was trying _not_ to hide. If you want, I can tell Miles I was drunk, and I'll go back to the station and we'll... I don't know. Exchange neutrally-worded postcards.” Though he's talking – painfully – of leaving, Julian offers the opposite by grabbing one of Garak's hands.

 

Garak looks down at Julian's hand for several seconds and then back into his face. “That depends on whether you're planning to compare me to a slime mold again.”

 

Julian's chest aches a little. “I wasn't comparing in the first place, but I won't, I promise.” He tries to smile in what he hopes is a charming way when he adds, “Forgive me?”

 

Garak looks back at Julian's hand wrapped around his. He appears to be actually weighing the options of keeping Julian around or throwing him out into the Cardassian heat to find his own way back to Deep Space Nine. For a moment or two, Julian thinks he may have done better to stop at being interested in an alien man 'the one time.' Fortunately, before Julian says something else even more damning, Garak responds.

 

“It would be better if you stayed,” he says. It sounds more like an explanation or an apology than an answer, but Julian doesn't much care for dissecting these particular words and lets out a relieved sigh.

 

“Good. I really _want_ to stay.”


End file.
